NRP sues Lone Star Brewery owner over failed land deal

Development company NRP Group has sued the owner of the Lone Star Brewery for not refunding a $550,000 deposit after the failure of a deal to buy land there for an apartment complex.

Development company NRP Group has sued the owner of the Lone Star Brewery for not refunding a $550,000 deposit after a deal to buy land for an apartment complex at the site fell through.

The lawsuit is more bad news in what has turned into an tumultuous year for the brewery. Construction was supposed to start last summer on a highly-anticipated $300 million project to rehabilitate the dilapidated site into retail shops, office space, apartments and a hotel, but the effort collapsed after its developer withdrew from the project.

NRP, a Cleveland-based company that is one of the most active multifamily developers in San Antonio, entered a contract with the owner, Lone Star Brewery Development Inc., in August 2016 to buy 2.4 acres at the brewery. The deal fell through after Lone Star didn’t meet its obligation to negotiate easements and construction rights that NRP needed to build on the land, according to court documents filed earlier this month.

NRP canceled the contract and asked for a refund of its $550,000 deposit, according to the filing. The company says it hasn’t been able to even get a response from the property owner, a subsidiary of Houston investment company Parkview Capital Credit.

“NRP terminated the contract and demanded a refund of its deposit payments,” the lawsuit reads. “Because Lone Star has refused to pay — or even to respond to the demand — NRP filed this suit.”

Representatives of NRP declined to comment, and Parkview’s CEO, Keith W. Smith, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The brewery’s troubles started around June, when national retail developer CBL & Associates withdrew from the rehabilitation project after learning that its partner, Mark Smith of San Marcos-based Aqualand Development, had a history of legal and financial troubles. Parkview took control of Lone Star Brewery Development — and, as a result, the Lone Star property — from Aqualand that month, according to federal securities filings.

The brewery was scheduled to be sold at foreclosure auction in November after Parkview defaulted on a $7.4 million loan. But the lender, Houston firm NCC Financial, canceled the sale shortly before the auction.

Kendrick James, a lawyer for NCC, said on Thursday that Parkview was up to date with its loan payments. The loan is slated to mature soon, and Parkview is trying to refinance it, he said.

“I don’t know what they’re doing” with the project, he said. “I haven’t talked to them.”

NRP was supposed to close on the 2.4-acre property in December 2016, according to the court filing. Dan Markson, NRP’s senior vice president of development, said last year that the company planned to build a five-story, 250-unit apartment complex on the site and that it hoped to build at least six residential buildings in the area in the long-term. It completed another complex, The Flats at Big Tex, near the brewery last year, and it plans to build another, Rio Lofts, farther south on the San Antonio River.

When NRP went under contract to buy the 2.4-acre property, Lone Star Brewery Development agreed to get the cooperation of an adjacent landowner for infrastructure to be built for the proposed apartment complex, according to the filing. But it was later confirmed that Lone Star Brewery Development itself owned the adjacent property, the filing says.

The rehabilitation project would have created hundreds of apartments, a boutique hotel, 105,000 square feet of office space and 271,000 square feet of retail shops at the brewery. South Side residents and leaders hoped it would rejuvenate the area, much as the Pearl has done for neighborhoods north of downtown.